Category Archives: Kernel

Learning from Broken Equipment and Minor Mistakes

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A few days ago, I noticed that websites were loading very slowly, particularly in the early stages.  It appeared as if there were problems with the DNS service being provided by my internal storage server.  I tried to SSH into the machine to do some investigation and access the Webmin web interface; neither option worked.  However, I was able to receive replys to pings sent to the server.  I knew something was up, but I would have to dig in to figure out exactly what.

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Starting a Podcast/Netcast

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I have been wanting to start a podcast for a very long time, inspired by what Leo Laporte does with TWiT and with what my parents did educating people. So, I spent some time thinking about a focus for the show and decided to start a podcast for people who are wishing to learn more about Linux. The Linux Enthusiasts’ Podcast recorded its first rehearsal podcast today (yes, on April Fool’s Day) to get a feel for the amount of material to need to fill 30-60 minutes.

For the most part, I would like to spend the time answering anyone’s Linux questions. But I thought I would include some weekly news, and I want to include two applications per week, one graphical and one text-based.

To get help with any conundrums, email len@nosbig.net. I want to hear from people before and during the podcast. I will probably post the rehearsal after I edit it down a little. There were a few spots where my ADD got the best of me and I repeated myself or I had to pause a moment to collect my thoughts. I thought I had prepared sufficiently for this episode, but clearly not.

Lingering Projects

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Over the course of the last few months, I have come across a few projects that I have not taken the opportunity to work on, and I really should. The following projects are on my short list of things to do:

  • Obtaining and reflashing a Linksys WRT54G router, either the GL or GS.
  • Playing with and/or hacking a LaFonera wireless access point
  • Building my power lockout device for my ham radio
  • Building a PC for my car with wireless capability for a media center
  • Building a decent amateur radio station, including packet station
  • Building a podcast station
  • Upgrade my radio license to General Class

At some point in the future, I want to do some kind of podcast. But before I would commit to that, I need to find a topic that I can regularly update and contribute. Part of the issue of the lack of updates is the company for which I work. MCPR has me doing some very interesting things, but they are marketable ideas that I have to keep quiet. The only project that I can talk about is our Asterisk dabblings. We are offering the ability to connect analog or IP phones to the system and connect to about any outbound media out there, including SIP trunks.

But much beyond that, I don’t have the ability to talk about the details of what I do at work with the world at large, between protecting our clients’ privacy and not wanting to give any competitors any ideas about our strategy.

Wireless Streaming Media Server

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Today, I am finishing up my Streaming Media Server. It will wirelessly share music streams and setting up in-house file sharing for my music.\n\nThe hardware included a Thinkpad 390E from IBM (333 MHz Pentium II, 192MB RAM, 6 GB hard drive) and a D-Link DWL-122 USB Wireless Wi-Fi Adapter. The software I am using is Debian 3.0 stable and the SlimDevices.com SlimServer software.
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2.4.21 Released

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Just a couple of days ago, the newest release of the 2.4 Linux kernel was released, after a lengthy period since 2.4.20. While there were very few truly new features, there were a great deal of improvements to existing drivers and subsystems….

And I could continue to repeat the same sort of reporting that many Linux news organizations would give you, but I won’t… What I will say is that I am really pleased with the driver changes for the ESS Solo1 sound chip. The driver actually plays audio right out of the box. There are still problems with it, however. The playback is a bit spotty. Every once in a while, I will get distortion and other problems. Usually unloading and reloading the drivers helps, but I hate to have to reboot for that! So, I went back and re-installed the ALSA drivers. Of course, the driver fixes in 2.4.21 could be entirely in vain, seeing as 2.6 is expected to use the ALSA drivers, anyway….

Now, everything is a bit quicker; there is a bit of improved performance overall.

Winmodem, Schwinmodem

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Of course, I had solved this problem once with Mandrake installed, but I was just lazy about getting the modem in this laptop working.

Fortunately for me, the internal Winmodem is a Lucent Technologies chipset that just happens to have a Linux driver, available at http://www.physcip.uni-stuttgart.de/heby/ltmodem/ The package was simple to install, and it works quite well, although I should try to figure out why the driver told me that it is a v.92 modem, or if this is normal with a controllerless modem.

New Loot

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This week, I finally bought a laptop, an IBM Thinkpad 390e.

Specs:

  • Pentium II – 333MHz
  • 128 MB SDRAM
  • 6.4 GB hard drive
  • Neomagic video chipset
  • 14.1″ LCD screen
  • Built-in 56k modem (Winmodem :-( )
  • Included Xircom 10/100 PCCard NIC

All this for only $350. I knew I would be able to install Linux on it, it was just a matter of how completely. Once again, Mandrake comes through. 8.0 installed flawlessly except for the modem. It even detected the modem; they just didn’t include drivers for it. A quick download from a link from www.linmodems.org solved that problem. The only other things I have done to it are changing the sound system from ALSA (which I despise with a passion) to OSS and to update GAIM from the 0.11pre1 version included with 8.0 to the newest version, 0.59.1. Neither sound driver works terribly well (especially for MP3 playback, but well enough for alert sounds and audio CD’s. Besides, this is a laptop, and I don’t want to kill the battery playing MP3′s or DVD’s (if that were available on this laptop).

RCHFH Network

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Things got a little interesting today as I was trying to set up the network for RCHFH.

The major problem was that the two clients I was running could ping each other, but not the server. I suspected a cable or simple configuration problem, but I tried to ping from the server to the clients, and that worked. I knew it wasn’t the cable.

Next, I tried examining the IP configuration of the clients. All looked normal.

Finally, it dawned on me that I had set up a firewall at one point through the Mandrake Control Cent
er. I took down the ethernet interface and flushed the chains from iptables. That wasn’t successful, so I took eth0 down again and removed the iptables kernel modules entirely. A quick ping later, and I was in business.

Now, the connectivity is restored; Samba actually logged me onto multiple machines and allowed me to connect to the server with the shares that I had set up.

System Upgrade

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This weekend, I upgraded to system to Mandrake 8.0 and am still recovering from a lack of sleep. ;-) The setup is good, except for a few key components. WindowMaker needs a new install, and Mozilla could use an upgrade. Gaim is already there, and I love the new kmail and knode. Xchat is a newer version with cool features. The only major problem is the kernel. It is 2.4.3 with all the associated bugs. I just have to make sure that I print the options from the Mandrake kernel 2.4.3 for framebuffer and non-fb kernels. It supported my CD-RW and both sound cards with kernel modules out of the box with even more modules if necessary. I still can’t get my Logitech USB mouse working properly, but I will soon. Just a matter of modules.